OBIT: Adie Kyle BELL, D.D., 1888, Blair County, PA

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REV. A. K. BELL, D.D.

The Sudden Death of a Brave and Good Man.

  At the request of the TRIBUNE the following sketch of the life of the Rev. A. 
K. Bell, D.D., has been written by a citizen of Hollidaysburg, who was 
intimately acquainted with the man and his work:
  Dr. Adie Kyle Bell died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Mary Wilson, 
Rochester. Pa., at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday.  He had gone there 
on a visit on the 16th; was taken with dysentery on the 21st.  Being aged and 
somewhat enfeebled by other ailments, death resulted very soon.
  He was born in the year 1816 in Tuckahoe valley.  His father, Edward Bell, 
was one of the first settlers, and a very prominent man in his day.  His 
mother's maiden name was Mary Ann Martin.  She was the daughter of a Scotch 
Irish Presbyterian clergyman, who, in the later part of the last century, 
preached to sparse congregations at Piney Creek, Warriorsmark and Half Moon.  
Dr. Edward Bell, like many of the intellectual men of his day, imbibed the 
opinions of Paine, Franklin and Jefferson and their school; as a consequence, 
was in religion what was then called a Free Thinker, now would call himself, 
probably, an Agnostic.
  From his mother Dr. Bell received a strictly Presbyterian rearing; at home 
obtained such education as could then be got which was not very much.  He 
commenced learning business in his father's store at an early age; while so 
engaged, there was in the employ of his father, a Welsh ore-miner, named Thomas 
E. Thomas.  He was a very religious man, and a Baptist.  Although of but little 
education, he was very devout and eloquent of speech, exhorted earnestly and 
prayed frequently, and afterwards, with experience became quite prominent as a 
preacher.  Under the exhortations of this miner preacher, Dr. Bell, at about 
the age of seventeen, was converted and baptized.  Soon after, against the 
bitter opposition of his father, he determined to become a Baptist preacher 
himself; was licensed by the Logan's Valley Baptist church in 1839.  Feeling 
the necessity of that mental equipment in his work which is given by education, 
he became a student at Washington college, Pa., and graduated there in 1842.  
He was ordained to the full work of the ministry by the Grant Street Baptist 
church of Pittsburgh in October of the same year.
  His first pastorate was at Hollidaysburg, continuing for one year, from April 
1, 1843; next at Logan's valley, the place of his birth and boyhood, from 1844 
to 1853.  From 1854 to 1859 he was treasurer and general agent of Lewisburg 
university.  From 1859 to 1870 he was pastor of Sandusky Baptist church, 
Allegheny City, Pa.  Then, by reason of ill health, he declined regular 
pastorates, although still preaching to destitute congregations until 1876.  At 
this time he resided in Hollidaysburg, having removed there from Allegheny City 
in 1870.  In 1876 he assumed charge of the First Baptist church at Altoona, 
which he kept until a few months ago, when failing health forced him to resign.
  He was married to Miss Elizabeth Allen, of Harrisburg, about the year 1844.  
She, with three children, Mrs. Mary Wilson, of Rochester; Mrs. Ellen Roller, 
wife of Dr. Roller, and Martin Bell, esq., of Hollidaysburg, survive him.  The 
chronology of events in such a life as his is of little moment.  His kind of 
life is the event that constitutes its worth to the living.  There are but few 
men now living in our community whose death would be more sincerely mourned by 
everybody.  There are but few to whom he was not personally well known; there 
are but few who did not love him, none who did not respect him.  He possessed 
in a marked degree what is generally called individuality, but which is only 
another name for more than ordinary ability, allied to bravery, either moral or 
physical, or both.  If he had been a lazy man or a coward, his death would have 
been noticed only by those in his immediate neighborhood.  His brain alone 
would not have saved him from obscurity.  But intellectually able, he was also 
active and fearless, and thus accomplished much in his life and died a man of 
note, mourned by the people of a large section of the state and sorrowed for by 
the church wherein he had a national reputation.
  He was abreast of the times on all political, moral and religious questions.  
The first abolitionist sermon the writer ever heard preached from the pulpit, 
was by him in 1853.  Any who remember how the question of slavery was regarded 
then, and in what hatred abolitionists were held, can realize the nerve of the 
man who could preach such a sermon in Hollidaysburg at that day.  He preached 
and prayed for the abolition of slavery when nine-tenths of the pulpits of the 
land were talking only of the curse of Ham and Paul and Onesimus - and when a 
large majority of the north were voting for slavery and ready to mob any one 
who raised his voice against it - while the minority, were dumb with voice and 
vote.  From the time he entered the ministry, until the monster of cruelty and 
injustice was destroyed, his voice was on the side of the weak and he 
oppressed; it was no whisper either.
  Thee same, with his attitude on the liquor question.  Does any old man in 
this county remember the time that Dr. Bell was not preaching, praying, 
lecturing or otherwise working for the destruction of intemperance?  Nor were 
his entire efforts confined to public exhortations.  How many darkened homes, 
made dark by drink, have been lighted up by his cheerful visits?  How many 
sorrowful wives have learned from him how to bear their terrible burden with 
Christian resignation?  How many destitute children have been helped to 
successful manhood and womanhood by his kind heart and hand, notwithstanding 
the weight of a drunken father?
  He was a politician, as every American should be.  No one ever heard him say 
he did not care how an election went. He did care.  He wanted it to go his way 
because he believed it to be the right way, and so he voted that way - not 
always on the same side.  He believed in certain political principles, but he 
also believed in trustworthy men to carry them out, and would not trust a bad 
man to carry out a good policy.  He was benevolent; although liberal of his 
means, he was not a reckless giver; he believed the most effectual charity was 
in assisting the weak and destitute to help themselves.  He would stint himself 
to help another to start or carry on a business, but was averse to throwing 
money away on idleness or crime.  The writer once saw him buy a few quarts of 
miserable berries from a worthless, shiftless white man, and within five 
minutes give them to a crippled negro.  When asked the reason he said: "It was 
so seldom the white man ever picked berries that he wanted to feel, for once 
the luxury of possessing an earned half dollar, that then he might have energy 
enough to pick a few quarts more, and in time possibly become self-sustaining.
  Of course, with his womanly kindness, his Christian fervor, his indomitable 
courage, his intellectual vigor and vigilance for the right, he had faults.  He 
loved to have his own way and was impatient of contradiction, the faults of 
strong men generally.  And at times, perhaps, his zeal and boldness in the 
cause of righteousness betrayed him into an imprudent utterance, but not often; 
his boldness and courage might in the thick of the fight prompt him to draw a 
sword and cut off the high priest's servants' ears, but he never would have 
been afraid because of the multitude on the other side, and he never would have 
lied about whose disciple he was.
  All in all he was every inch a Christian man, not perfect, but one of the 
best of our weak, erring race.  It is commonplace to say of such and such an 
one the world is better for his having lived in it; but here there are very few 
who knew this good, brave man who did not feel that they are better because he 
lived.

Altoona Tribune, August 30, 1888